The Day of Mourning is an important day to many – especially our own staff, some of whom began a career in health and safety because they were affected by a workplace incident or death.

Annette Greenwood, an express solutions analyst developer in our Richmond office, has a close connection to the work we do at WorkSafeBC. On a spring day in 1991, her brother was working on a catwalk repairing a refrigeration semi-truck when he fell through the catwalk railing. The incident left him with a compression fracture in his lumbar vertebrae and split his femur. A metal rod was inserted into his leg, and he spent many months in hospital and years recovering from a moment that easily could have taken his life.

Annette had started working at WorkSafeBC a few months prior to her brother’s fall. Since then, she has spent more than thirty years working in seven different departments, all with one goal: to help ensure incidents like her brother’s don’t happen to anyone else.

Day of Mourning resonates

For Annette, the annual Day of Mourning ceremony is an opportunity to reflect on the impact workplace injuries and illnesses have on workers and their families.

“When I hear those bagpipes, I can’t help but get emotional,” she says, noting that her brother very well might not have come home that fateful day. “It reminds me of what I have to be thankful for.”

Annette’s personal experience has also kept her focused on the “why” behind her various roles at WorkSafeBC.

“I’ve been lucky to work in so many departments and have seen all the ways we integrate and work together to provide services that support employers and workers,” she says. “I have a holistic view of our collective purpose at WorkSafeBC.”

Through hard work and dedication, Annette’s brother was able to eventually return to work full time with modified duties. She says the incident made him an advocate for health and safety on the job. He’d often point out hazards to his co-workers and lobby to address dangers in the workplace.

Today, he’s retired — but his workplace injury still looms large.

“The incident really brought home for all of us that you need to apply safety … in every situation,” she says. “Something so simple — such as falling — can have such a profound impact. In one moment, your whole world can change.”

Take a moment on April 28 to remember

Join us in a moment of silence on April 28 to remember the 161 B.C. workers who died last year from a workplace injury or disease.

Visit dayofmourning.bc.ca for a listing of ceremonies around the province, and watch a livestream of the Day of Mourning ceremony from Jack Poole Plaza in Vancouver at 10:30 a.m. to recognize the day, and those we lost.